Maduro claims he is the victim of drug smugglers and paramilitaries. However, the real victims in this escalating humanitarian mess have a different opinion, as can be seen in the video above. (In Spanish)

And not only Latin American leaders, but artists, writers, intellectuals, etc. The silence is deafening. I wish only 1% of the ones who have criticised Trump recently would dare say something, but they don’t, because to criticise the left is not political correct.

Former president of Colombia and current Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Ernesto Samper Pizano, will deliver a speech on South American regional integration and multilateralism next month in London at Canning House.

In July 2014 when Samper was named Secretary General of UNASUR in Caracas, he announced that he planned to create a South American International Criminal Court to deal with regional criminal issues.

Ernesto Samper Pizano was the 29th President of Colombia, in office between 1994 and 1998.

The Hague? The only court in the Hague that’s waiting for Venezuela is the ICJ when they finally put an end to our position with the Esequibo. The other court, the ICC, doesn’t handle human rights violations, and frankly there has not been any situation worthy of summoning the international criminal system (unlike Rwanda, Ex-Yugoslavia, etc).

Dude there are a lot of situations worthy of summoning the international criminal system. What about the jailed students, the political prisoners, the OLP; the video above for Christ sake!!! Each one of them are violations to Human Rights, the exact same court that jailed Milosevic is the one that should judge this guys: Maduro, Cabello, El Aissami, Carrizales, Rodriguez Chacin, L Rincon, J Rodriguez, Bernal, and so many others. Each of these are directly involved in crimes against the Venezuelan people.

Maybe the OLP’s could be considered in the future as crimes against humanity, if the State doesn’t prosecute the people responsible first, however I doubd’t such case could gather enought international support, for it to be actually put forth before the ICC forum.

Besides, as I argued earlier, there’s a difference between Crimes Against Humanity and violations of Human Rights. Of course on places where Crimes Against Humanity, Genocides, and War Crimes have been commited, there are going to be Human Rights violations.

However, I don’t believe that in the case of Venezuela, the international criminal system could be activated. The April 11 shootings could qualify as a possible event that could be brought into the ICC, had them happened after the Venezuelan ratification of the Statute of Rome, therefore inapplicable to such event (Temporal Jurisdiction).

As for the case of Human Rights violations in Venezuela. Since we denounced the ICDH Statute, we can only apply to the International System of Protection of Human Rights (UN system) whose powers are extremely limited, compared to the Interamerican System.

Imprescriptible; They dont prescribe. Sin beneficios, that means no benefits. I dont know what they mean with tribunales ordinarios. I hope they dont meant that only Venezuelan courts could treat this. I assume not, because if Venezuela signed the Hague Treaty, therefore that would become ordinary jurisdiction.

But in general, I agree. We don’t see enough of people like Shakira denouncing what’s going on right next door, affecting her own countrymen now!

This does remind me…I do recall years ago Chavez on his TV show brought out a guitar he said was a personal gift from Shakira, but the next day her spokesman said she never gave him anything, and it turned out she had given it to some local fan club in Caracas and some Chavista had then taken it from them and gave it to Chavez. Classic Chavez, all bombast and lies and no shame.

Political skulmudgery makes strange bed fellows , who would have thought that Maduro would rip a page out of Trumps repertoire of intolerant xenophobic attacks against undocumented inmmigrants !!

The main beneficiary in Colombia of these measures is Uribe , whose tough anti maduro position will now draw the support of millions and millions of patriotically outraged colombian !! Poor Santos will now have to do something to defend himself from being branded as soft in the defense of persecuted colombians in Venezuela .!!

The oppo of couse will also benefit from the support of equally enraged documented colombian voters inside Venezuela.

Certainly the measure will distract Venezuelans from their outrage at their worsening living conditions , but not enough to create any wave of simpathy for Maduros strindent measures at the border.

Hey forgot what effect this will have on the FARC following now that they can be seen as the allies of a regime that persecutes innocent colombians , not bound to be very favourable .!! .

You have to feel bad for these people, the young mother sounds like an honest, working person..

But you have to wonder, what do all of these Colombian people come looking for these days in Murderzuela, one of the worst countries to be in on the Planet right now?

Is Colombia THAT bad too?

I understand the millions who came before Chavismo, when there were jobs in Vzla and the FARCS were ravaging Colombia, They built their little shanty towns and mixed with the local population, got jobs.. For them it must be difficult to return to their countries.

But they are close to the border, they still have ties right there in Colombia, heck why not go to Brazil or anywhere else.. Venezuela?? worst inflation, crime, escasez, etc??

Many of them must be involved in illegal activities. Drugs or Bachaqueo and Contraband.

Much of the border population, both sides, lives off contraband/bachaqueo/narco activities. And, according to a Colombian albanil friend, who just spent 3 years away from Venezuela in Colombia for personal reasons, but just returned to work in Venezuela, Colombia insecurity/drug use at the barrio level is at least as bad as Venezuela’s.

And although we can say that Colombia is, overall, ‘better’ than Venezuela now, the former has always been much poorer than the latter… Secondly, there are Colombian cities in the border that are worse economically than their peers on the Venezuelan side; it’s not black and white (Colombia is good, Venezuela is bad). Thus, that woman finding a job near her Colombian town, in the Venezuelan side, instead of moving to far away Bogotá, is not something unexpected.

“Many of them must be involved in illegal activities. Drugs or Bachaqueo and Contraband.”

If that’s really the case, Maduro is speaking the truth then, and we must support him.

From World Bank data: From 1998 to 2014, per capita income in constant dollars or constant local currency units increased 8% in Venezuela, and 40-43 % in Colombia. From 1998 to 2014, Colombia’s per capita income measured in constant dollars went from about 56% of Venezuela’s to about 74% of Venezuela’s.

Regarding the funny money aspect of Venezuela’s multiple exchange rates: when you take the 1998 dollar equivalents and multiply by the local exchange rate changes in per capita income- all in constant units- you get about the same results- from 56% to about 74%.

For 2015, the gap between Colombia and Venezuela should have narrowed some more.

Masburro never speaks the truth. On rare occasions, by mistake, he might bray something vaguely related to reality, though. The fact that there’s a lot of crime, contraband, drugs and billions in illegal trade at the border is no secret. Or that the Thugs of the Kleptozuelan dictatorship couldn’t care less.

It’s not only the latest smoke screen, distraction, circus, or excuse to avoid elections. I believe there also some local battles between major local Thieves, governors, Guardia, Police factions, Colombian thugs, drug trade, FARC interests.. the whole enchilada. Only in GAS shipments the money is Huge. Add drugs to that (cartel los Soles; Cabello vs. other Cartels are part of this, for sure)

The small-time bachaqueo or 5 lousy “wounded soldiers” has nothing to do with it.

Follow the money, as always, besides the politics, which amounts to the same in Gui$$$$$ozuela.

Because Excelsior Gama is an establshed, legal business that pays its taxes.

bachabasuras are choros who want to rip off working people’s money or else they give everybody a facefull of bullets, they are just another parasitic turd defecated by chaburrismo to torment venezuelans.

Tony, you can thank Santos for stopping Uribe’s policies and actions against the farcassassins and completely shutting those plans down in exchange of that useless “peace agreement” where those drug bastards still keep ravaging the frontier zone, making the people’s lives there a daily hell, that’s why people are desperate to get out of that place.

And now Arturo resorts to invented fiction instead of mere misrepresentation. The Colombian anti-communist paramilitaries were created starting in 1962 under an anti-communist doctrine called “Plan Lazo”. Alvero Uribe was 10 years old at the time.

Also, the ELN aka paracos and the FBL aka guerrillas CHABURRAS are in control of the borders in Barinas and Apure states, both groups trafficking gasoline and extorting locals with outrageous “vacunas”; the guajiros control Zulia’s borders and traffic gasoline AND bachaqueo-ing tons of food too, and if somebody bothers them, they go and burn the mayor’s office.

And let’s not forget the ones who are in Brasil’s borders, the garimpeiros, who have been stealing our gold and other precious minerals since more than 20 years ago, while slaughtering the natives nonstop.

But hey, in the best chaburro tradition, the best scapegoats are those who can’t defend themselves.

Dude come on.. Imagine one day they tell you that from Prados del Este up thats one country and you happen to live by Plaza Venezuela? Thats exactly what happened when diplomats agreed to cut the border between Venezuela and Colombia just there in San Antonio- Cucuta. The people from this area are from both countries, period. Their ancesters are from there, you are no one to tell them which side you have to be. They can choose to be in whatever side they want, its been like that before bachaqueo existed. And, yes I found it hard to believe they still want to go to Venezuela, but this is up to them. Its called freedom of choice. Thats the point.

Colombians have been coming over to Venezuela during decades , they set their roots here, found jobs, created businesses , married locally , had their kids born here or raised here , developed friendship with both colombians and venezuelans and people of mixed national origins , the economy was more prosperous here at one time and jobs were easier to find and better paid. so they came in droves . things have changed radically here but once you build your life in a place its difficult to just lift your roots and go back . thats the deal .

The problem with being xenophobic with colombians in venezuela is that they have assimilated so easily into the frabric of Venezuelan life that sometimes its difficult to seen them as all that alien. everyone has some kin who is married to a colombian or who has colombian roots somewhere in their lineage.

Remember when living abroad as a kid that the kids I could most easily relate to where those from colombia and ecuador , you hit it right off , its different when the inmigrant has a different language, racial stock , religion , basic attitude towards life etc. But colombians and Venezuelans share so much that they dont fit into the category of threatening aliens all that easily !!

My mother in law was born in Colombia, she and a few other in laws recently went to Bogota to get their Colombian passports in case they decide to leave. They have an escape route, which is more than most Venezuelans can say.

The thesis of an excuse for “postponing” the Dec. elections gains traction from a recent report that Colombian descendants comprise almost 20% of Venezuela’s population, and 25% of the Gran Mision Vivienda apartments population, which latter “voted” (little, if any Oppo witnesses could enter) 90% for Maduro in the last Presidential election….

I predict the following if elections are held. Those with Venezuelan cedulas but are of Colombian descent who vote oppo or abstain in the elections, will find out that the record of their cedulas will have disappeared from the registry. Their cedulas will turn into nothing more than pieces of paper, and the GOV will accuse them of having forged cedulas.

I think that many of us may be over-analyzing the government’s actions in deporting Colombians. I believe that the overall goal of these measures is to simply reduce the population of Venezuela. From the government’s perspective, the vast majority of the population living in Venezuela is a liability. They consume subsidized imports, but do not produce enough to contribute to the overall economy. Mind you, the lack of production is not the people’s fault. It was the government’s policies that destroyed investment and production. Today, the countries income relies nearly exclusively on the exportation of petroleum (96% of GDP). The government is content with this but the problem is that, with the fall in the price of oil, the income is not sufficient to satisfy the needs of population of 30 million people and provide enough to support the regime in the style to which they have become accustomed. So, the simple solution is reduce the expenditure on imports by reducing the population. They really only need enough population to manage the petroleum industry, maintain the infrastructure, and feed recruits into the military. So, somewhere on the order of half to two thirds of the population is really superfluous to their needs.

It is estimated that there are about 5 million Colombians in Venezuela. Many of these have been living here for decades and are fully documented, but that won’t make any difference. If they target everyone who has any connection to Colombia, they can eventually eliminate about 6 to 10 million people when you include their families who elect to leave with them. If your goal is to drastically reduce the population of the country, that is a good start. The fact that they will create a humanitarian refugee crisis doesn’t bother them at all, and anyway, that will be Colombia’s problem.

The impact on the elections is not even a factor to the regime. They will suspend elections or cheat massively, whichever seems appropriate at the moment. So, if you stop looking for more complex motivations and think of this as simply a measure to reduce the population, it begins to make more sense.

We cant know with certainty the cause of the govts penchant for outlandish highly aggresive behaviour , maybe more than one explanation serves to explain it , maybe they dont know exactly what is it that drives them to these wild words and gestures, whatever reasons they concoct among themselves to justify their actions . We do know that civilized rational balanced govts dont act this way , that to a rational person what they do is daft or crazy. in many ways they hurt their own interests , their international standing , the simpathies of quite a few of their former followers.

One thing that strikes me as a constant is the way their explanations and measures are always so histrionic, so theatrical, so pretentious , so deliberately drastic dastardly and violent, so bombastically melodramatic, so full of insults and peyorative rants , so crassly designed to attract the maximum of attention . Its as if they had in their head a deranged writer of soap operas writing the script to all their words and gestures.

Chavez of course was a narcicist of the first order a buffoon full of his own delusional sense of greatness , that must have gotten into his supporters emotional DNA , they are gansgters and what they do is act to gratify their gangster conceits , they are thugs so what they do must express force , violence , superb arbitrary might. Its king kong the big gorilla thumping his chest and roaring his defiance to the world.!!

You cannot help but feel sorry for the young woman in the video hvaing to go back to her country.

I guess if she had wanted to live in Venezuela she should have at least tried to do it legally.

This begs the question of why so many Colombians come to Venezuela year in, year iut? Maybe it’s the 60 year old civil war; maybe it’s because Colombians feel safer in Venezuela and have more rights, cheaper food when it’s not beinf smiggled to Colombia. The short answer is that Colombia is a mess and has been that wat since the 1000 Day War at the turn of the 19th and 29th centuries when political violence took off.

I guess the idea of destroying the ranchos is being copied from what the Israelis do to Palestinian homes in the occupied territories, The difference is that we are demolishing these shacks on our territory and not taking land away from the Colombians.

I see that many European countries send migrants back over the border if they arrive illegally and no one screams about human rights.

So why is Venezuela violating human rights by doing the same as the civilized Europeans?.

You idiots realice of course, that Maduro is going to gain hundreds of thousands of votes for taking this decisive action.

I have to congratulate him for protecting the Venezuelans living in Táchira and hope that many thousands of illegals from all countries are sent back home.

After reading the link, it is a bit confusing, but I think they are saying that Andrea González once had a romantic relationship with someone, who who knew someone, who knew someone, who allegedly planned to murder Daniella Caballo. So, therefore, she is responsible. Guilt by association three times removed. Based on that logic, ANYONE could be convicted of ANYTHING!

There’s nothing confusing about derailing readers’ attention, inventing a victimhood narrative — más enredado que un kilo de estopa, a propósito — and having “Arturo” pop up in the Fray to frame his National Enquirer reading as the Truth.

The “Chavismo isn’t a killer regime like Pinochet’s regime was” meme loses its power when you realize that the number of people the Pinochet regime killed in SIXTEEN YEARS is about equal to the number of people that get murdered in SIX WEEKS in Venezuela. [3,000 in 16 years by Pinochet’s regime; 25,000 murdered per year in Venezuela]

As Chavismo has been in power for 16 years, and the murder rate has skyrocketed during this time, “yo no fui” doesn’t cut it. The skyrocketing of the murder rate occurred on Chavismo’s watch, with nary an effective response from the Chavista government.

Oh, so we’re bringing past dictatorships of other countries into this?
Very well, why don’t you ask what the Russians and the Chinese, our dear allies, know about human rights? Since Stalin and Mao’s murder record makes Pinochet’s look like amateurish.
You seem to have no interest in holding these radical left regimes to the same accountability standards that you demand of right-wing ones, and I can only assume it’s because you have no shame, no integrity and no intelligence.

Anyone new to the issue of Venezuela can be easily forgiven for not understanding. Much of what happens here defies reason and logic. As for your questions:

1. A Colombian citizen arriving on a tourist visa can stay 90 days. There are other visas (business, etc.) that allow longer stays. Many Colombians have, for a long time, come to Venezuela and remained here undocumented, while others have regularized their status. It is not dissimilar to the various situations with the Mexicans and other Latinos in the U.S. The situation has been complicated by the currency and price controls creating a lucrative market for smuggling.

2. In Colombia there are several extra-legal militias. The best known one is the FARC, which started as a communist insurgency a long time ago, but has long since morphed into an armed drug producer and trafficker dressed up as a leftist political movement. Chavismo has long had friendly ties and cooperation with this group. At the height of the FARC’s power, the weakness of the Colombian government lead to the emergence several anti-communist independent civilian paramilitary groups, originally sponsored by the Colombian military. These groups countered the growing power of the FARC and operated outside of the law. They have never been officially recognized by the Colombian government, but the military cooperated with them unofficially for a long time, as did the U.S. (again unofficially). Predictably, they were responsible for atrocities equal to the enemy they were created to fight. Eventually, they also got into the drug trade in competition with the FARC. As the FARC’s influence declined, these groups became local warlords or fiefdoms and continued in the drug business. Their territory and power has been whittled away little by little, but they do still exist, though not in the numbers or power that they used to. Without any hard evidence to support it, Chavismo often blames crimes and atrocities that occur on Venezuelan soil on the Paramilitaries. They have become one of the “go to” boogeymen for the Chavista regime.

We all know by now how Venezuelans like it: “que se lo metan poco a poco, y no de una”.

You know the ancient adage of the Boiling Frog.. Classic Castro-Chavista technique, they tighten the screws slowly but surely, in due time, while the Come-Yuca Zombies get used to it..

Gotta give them that, don’t we, for all the “ineptitude” we constantly accuse them of. They sure know how to boil a frog, preferably with heavy doses of anesthesia, plenty of spices and lots of patience..

Case in point, again: if you want to perpetrate a classic Self-Coup d’Etat, what more accommodating for such a Sapo-Pueblo than to do it… poco a poco.. , in stages, turning up the heat, gradually, until it’s pass-out time, way too late to escape?

Oppenheimer and others are already talking about such a convenient pre-elections “Auto-Golpe”,nothing new in worldwide history, and it’s there in every boiling Colombian border kitchen: Estado de Excepcion, has a nice ring to it, pero poco a poco.. chamo.. no te alborotes chico.. tranquila mija.. municipio por municipio pa’ que no se asuste el pueblo-sapo.

If you want to tighten the final screws of the Chavista disguised Dictatorship, what better way to do it and where do you start? The Border, of course, most porous, incendiary and vulnerable area. Duh…

The “estado de excepcion”, already extended indefinitely into December, suavecito, calladito, durante el fin de semana sabroso, with other Circus news orchestrated by the Propaganda machine (dismembered woman, whatever..) what a delightful coincidence, huh? All they have to do next is to create some more serious “incident” , kill some some guards and or soldiers, a few dead military personnel, stronger words against la Derecha Radical Paramilitar de Uribe.. y listo el caldo, Boiling Frog is ready: Full Estado de Excepcion, full military grab of the entire country, toque de queda, curfews everywhere (notice the new Hours of Operation for Food Lines..). people hardly notice as they haven’t notice Chavismo sticking it to them poco a poco every month a bit more, year after year..

Remember early 2014? Full Purge of the Fuerzas Militares, including the DIM, getting the Sebin, Guardia Nazional, and corrupt police ready, controlling the Cota 905 and out-of-hand thugs , while not doing anything at all, not a single economic measure to stop the bleeding, quite the contrary, creating chaos in as many ways a possible, poco a poco, eso si……. Samper is also in the Bolivarian payroll.. DilmaBitch will be quiet…. todo casi listo… there seems to be a method to the madness.

The “Parlamento” and TSJ have been in total control for a long time, the Military top Genereal: all in the bag, where do you start the announced “Radicalizacion de la Revolucion”,, the Colombian Border, of course. Tachira, gotta control the Gochos, if you know your Vzlan history..

Now they’re just getting closer to the final boiling point, except the drugged out Zombie Frogs don’t know it yet… still in their colas, talking about inflasion y la ejcasez, while the Regime prepares the final touches for a full Auto Golpe de Estado,

In Venezuela papers were never obtainable going thru the channels . the machinery of govt was so inept issuing papers that it took great deal of persistence to get them and very often the help of some influential or connected sponsor . At the same time the effort at controlling the presence of undocumented colombians was so ineffectual and inconstant that for many there was no real need for it.

At one point Chavez wanted to get venezolanized colombians to vote for him so he ordered a campaign to just give all colombians who wanted them venezuelan papers . His expectation was that in gratitude they would vote for him or his candidates. Also using the process he could give papers to FARC narcotraffickers and even have them vote in Venezuelan elections . That by the way was proven to have happened with some Farc people who got arrested by colombian authorities.

Then as usually happens the effort just stopped and quite a few people were left without papers . The former policy of neglect was recently replaced by a policy of persecution on the invented ground that amids the colombian there were some former paramlitiaries . i.e the enemies of Farc guerrillas. the regimes ideological alles . The idea apparently rose among the Chavista bigwigs that blaming paramilitaries for all the crime would help them get off the hook as beign the main sponsors of crime in Venezuela thru the colectivos , the benign neglect of criminal prosecution of ordinary criminals etc.

The paramilitaries are a loose category of people , i.e. anyone the regime decideds to blame for the crimes their own people or protected criminals have committed . They are an invented scapegoat for the crime problem they did so much to foster and allow.

Its laughable that there the regime shoud use their sapos infiltrados in the oppo to denounce a dark sinister plot to kill the daughter of DDC , when its evident that if there were any oppo conspirators prepared to kill someone in their regime they would not waste a bullet on this frivolous girl but would instead make better use of it by targeting her father . That of course would be a mistake.

Wow!!! Telesur is fast! So, those 1000 Colombians deported were responsible for all scarcity in the Western portion of Venezuela! And without them smuggling everything anymore, the government managed to restore everything back on the shelves immediately! How many days have passed since that started? Three? Four?

And then you have this lovely picture of a happy couple as the ultimate evidence of a happy ending, because they could at last find everything they needed in their monthly shopping now that these infamous Colombians are gone!

Oh, wait! They could only find two different products: 4 toilet rolls and a lot of arepas. Maybe that’s the reason the woman can’t barely look to the camera, it’s just too ridiculous even for her. What a farce…

Well they all have bogus cedulas for voting, so they rely on clear language differences: the different accent, expression, like the British or Canadians vs USA. Then again, they’ve been screwing each other for so long, the 3rd generation is indistinguishable.

Venezuela and Colombia are such beautiful countries with so many kind-hearted people! So sad to see that Maduro and the sorry excuse of a corrupt political government he represents is creating a state of inhumane practices and repression for both Venezuelans and Colombians!